


Over The Hills and Far Away

by notmanos



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Badass Castiel, Beware of what you're looking for, Librarians are cool, sassy demon, tree horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-19 03:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14865731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notmanos/pseuds/notmanos
Summary: (Season 5) Dean gets a strange call for Castiel that he's finally found God in a small town. Dean's bad feeling about this turns out to be correct, as Castiel has definitely found something ... but not exactly what he was looking for. Can Dean figure out what it is and save himself and Cas before everything goes to hell?





	1. Distortion

**Author's Note:**

> Partially inspired by a fic call, but also, I always wanted to write a Dean and Cas story. So here it is.

_** 1- Distortion ** _

 

When Dean got the call, he thought he was still asleep. His eyes were still closed when he put his phone to his ear.

“Dean, I found him!” Cas said, sounding so happy Dean almost didn’t recognize his voice. “God! You have to see him, it’s glorious.” There was a burst of static on the line ... but did Cas actually laugh beneath it? “Belleville, Vermont. You have to -“

The call cut off with such abruptness, Dean opened his eyes. He looked at the motel ceiling, and the phone in his hand. He was awake? Must have been. But there was no way that was Cas on the line.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he called Cas’s number, and only got his strange voice mail message. “Cas, did you just call me from Vermont? Call me back.” 

Dean had been having lots of nightmares lately, otherwise he would have assumed the Cas call was a dream. First of all, he was never giddy. Second, finding God? Yeah, right. Dean kind of hoped he did, just so he could punch that motherfucker in the face. If he wanted to end the world, then he could fucking do it and leave him and Sam out of it. 

By the time Dean was done with his shower, Cas hadn’t called him back. Another attempt at contacting him got him the voice mail again. Was Cas in trouble? He couldn’t shake the thought he was, so he looked up Belleville, Vermont, and hit the road.

Part of him wanted to call Sam and tell him, but he didn’t. He hunted for years without Sam. He could do it again. 

It was a long drive, and he’d hoped that Cas would get back to him before he got there, but he never did. He crossed the state border of Vermont with the sun coming up, turning the sky a rosy hue. For some reason, that stupid old rhyme popped into his head: _Red sky at morning, sailors take warning_. What did that even mean? And where the hell had he learned it? He would swear he never had, and yet there it was, in the forefront of his consciousness for some damn reason. 

He wanted to blame it on the upcoming apocalypse, but he blamed everything on the upcoming apocalypse. Everything felt wrong, and he wasn’t sure how to stop it. He tried not to think about it too much, or the self-loathing became overwhelming.He really wanted a drink, but it wasn’t even eight in the morning. Dean had made himself not drink before at least eight, but why bother? The world was ending. Drink ‘em if you got ‘em. At the first stoplight, he took a swig from his flask.

He hadn’t been in Vermont an awful lot, but it was always pretty. Lot of trees, lots of rural scenery, especially nice in the fall. But dark, ominous clouds seemed to grow thicker the closer he got to Belleville, and finally the skies opened up, drenching the car. The windshield wipers almost couldn’t keep up with the deluge, and his visibility neared zero until it finally let up near the Belleville city limits. Was this a sign? If it was, was it good or bad? You’d think the sky clearing up would be a positive development, but he trusted nothing.

Belleville was a tiny place, very pastoral, a postcard perfect small town, so of course Dean distrusted it on sight. Would God really settle here? He might be that much of an asshole. Still, if he did, it was very disappointing. 

He followed winding roads through forests of pine and maple, and they were so empty Dean began to wonder if he was driving the same roads over and over again. Maybe this was some kind of divine punishment for interlopers. A Mobius strip roadway. 

But then he came to a steep curve, and the road turned down into a shallow valley, where a town straight out of some ’50’s movie appeared, complete with a white steepled church and not a single parking lot in sight. Or big box store, or fast food place. Did those places exist anymore? Dean wasn’t sure they did. 

He had a bad feeling creeping down his spine, which only got worse when he drove into the heart of the town. There were very few people out and about, but those that were all had blissed out smiles on their faces. like they were as high as fuck, and really satisfied with this life choice. Dean envied them, and also pitied them. How could anyone be cheerful with the apocalypse pending?

Dean was hoping Cas would know he was here and just show up, as he sometimes did. They had that weird connection that he didn’t fully understand, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to or even could understand. Cas was Cas. He was the reason he was out of Hell, and alive today. He was the closest thing he had to a friend. That was sad, wasn’t it? Not much he could do about it now.

Dean parked the Impala out in front of what looked like a mom and pop hardware store, the kind that didn’t really exist anymore, and waited for people to look at him, point, and scream, like in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. But it didn’t happen. People went on like he wasn’t even there. 

He walked down the street to a diner, which had a handful of customers in it. Formica counters, vinyl booths, a line of leather stools pulled up to the main counter - it looked exactly like he expected it to look. It also smelled exactly like he thought it would smell - like bacon and maple syrup, with a hint of coffee. 

Dean frowned at his own thoughts. Why wasn’t he trusting this place? It seemed fine. Why was he automatically so suspicious? Maybe because of his entire life. He could hear his Dad in his head, telling him,  _ “If something is too good to be true, it is, one hundred percent of the time.”  _ Good old Dad, sharing his paranoia with him. Had it ever been wrong, though?

He sat down in the nearest booth, and took out his phone. He called Cas’s number again, and got the voice mail. After the fourth time, it didn’t seem as funny as it usually did. “Cas, look, I’m in Belleville, in Betty’s Diner. This place is starting to give me the heebie -“

“Hello, Dean.” Cas said.

Dean almost jumped, but he should have been accustomed to Cas showing up in a blink. He looked like himself, from the dark blue tie to the rumpled trench coat, but as he slid into the bench seat across from him, he grinned. His usual sober face was suddenly split by this brilliant smile, that made his eyes seem to shine. It was odd and deeply disturbing. “I can’t believe I’ve found him. We can stop the apocalypse.”

“Have you talked to him about it?” Dean asked. 

Cas nodded. He seemed almost stoned, although his eyes were clear. “Yes. He said he has a plan. He’s not going to let his people die. Isn’t that great?”

“His people?”

Castiel made an all encompassing hand gesture, taking in the entirety of the diner, and the outside world. This reminded Dean that Cas almost never talked with his hands, which seemed more like a human thing. “Everyone. All of us. We’re saved!”

“Uh huh. Does Heaven know about this?”

“He said he’d informed them.”

“Have you double checked?”

Cas’s smile didn’t falter. “No. I don’t have to.” He cocked his head curiously, that gesture that identified Cas more than anything else. “You don’t believe me?”

Dean tried to step back and look at this clinically, from an outsider’s perspective. Was he being paranoid? What did he see that seemed wrong, beyond a happy Cas? “It’s not that -“

“It is that.” Castiel straighted up and frowned, very slightly. “I’m sorry, Dean.”

“Sorry for what?”

“Sorry for how your father raised you. He was really -“

“Whoa,” he said, holding up his hands. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Your father, John.” Cas sat forward, folding his hands in front of him on the table. “It’s not your fault.”

“Okay, I’m out,” Dean said, sliding out of the booth. He wasn’t drunk enough or awake enough to have a conversation even remotely like this. 

Cas stood up as well. “Dean -“

“Can I meet him?” Dean interrupted.

That made Cas briefly pause. He didn’t really have a Children of the Corn vibe, but something close to it, and Dean didn’t like the way he was trying to throw him off by getting into his head. “Who?”

“God.”

Cas smiled again. He - well, his vessel, Jimmy - was a good looking guy. But god, it was still creepy as fuck. “I was hoping you’d ask. Follow me.”

Dean did as he said, following him out of the diner, and while walking, wondered if he had enough weapon options with him. 

Cas stopped walking so suddenly that Dean almost slammed into his back. He pivoted smoothly on his heels to face him. “I wouldn’t think that around him. He’s very forgiving, but even he has his limits.”

“Are you reading my mind? Cas, I thought we talked about this.”

“I’m not doing it on purpose, Dean. Your thoughts are very ... loud.”

That actually made sense. Dean often confined his screaming internally, since externally got noticed quite a bit. Still, Cas usually wasn’t so blatant about picking up his thoughts. 

“I think it’s His presence,” Cas said, as if Dean had said any of that out loud. “It’s amplifying my powers.”

“If you’ve got your powers back, why didn’t you just get me? Why did I have to drive here?”

“Why would I leave here? And you love your car.”

Dean had no response to that. He did love his car. Still, it was strange. Even as depowered as he was, Cas did like to drop in and grab him when he wasn’t ready for it. Not that he was ever ready for angel transport. It was always weird, because it seemed to take place in a moment between breaths - you were one place, then you weren’t, and it felt like your guts had been dropped off a ten story building at a hundred miles an hour, while the rest of you stood in place. Was a Star Trek like beam out too much to ask for? “What about Bobby? He still needs healing up. And why don’t you get Sam? Nobody would be more thrilled to meet God than him.”

Cas put a hand on his arm. It was weirdly chummy for him. “You need to meet him more than any of the others.”

Oh, he really didn’t like the sound of that. “Why?”

Cas gave him this look that Dean absolutely hated. It was some combination of pitying the poor, stupid mortal in general, and pitying Dean specifically. “No, Dean, it’s not. It’s -“

“Just take me there.” Dean interrupted. He didn’t want to hear it. Whatever Cas was going to say, Dean instinctively knew he was better off not knowing it. 

“There’s no reason to be afraid,” Cas said, in a very gentle voice that Dean had never heard him use before. He was so creeped out he could barely suppress the shudder. Something was one hundred percent wrong with this place, and it was affecting Cas, whatever it was. 

But why wasn’t it affecting him?

Dean attempted to smile, and knew he’d failed, but there was no help for it now. “Lead on.” 

Cas stared at him a moment, in that disconcerting way that made him feel like Cas was staring straight into his soul and out the other side, and then nodded, as if he was satisfied with what he saw. He started walking up the street again, and Dean followed.

He also pulled his phone out of his pocket. He didn’t care if Sam didn’t want to hear from him right now. He needed to know weird shit was going on, and it may have snagged Cas. But Dean got no signal. Yeah, that wasn’t a great sign either. He should have called him before he got here. 

They seemed to be heading for the church, which made sense, although it was a cliche, wasn’t it? You’d hope God would be more creative than that. A church bell started ringing, a quaint sound that reaffirmed how weirdly old fashioned this place was, and it took Dean a moment to realize there were people starting to gather in front of it.

Not just any people. They were all wearing blue robes, like those nuns on that old wine bottle, but without the wimple and head gear. They were also mostly men, with a couple women sprinkled in. “What’s going on?”

“It’s time for the ceremony,” Cas said. 

Okay, yeah, this was getting worse by the second. “What ceremony?”

“God has been in hiding for some time, and his power level is not quite what it was, so the people are helping him regain his strength.”

What? “How? How are people helping him?”

As soon as the last toll of the bell sounded, the people - ten in all - stood in a circle, and pulled something out of their sleeves. When the sun glinted off of them, Dean realized they were knives. 

It happened ridiculously fast. Dean took one step forward, and by that time, every single person in the circle had slit their own throat. Blood spurted, red and arterial, as they all collapsed to the ground, dying with beatific smiles on their faces. 

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Cas asked, still with that dreamy smile on his face.

What the fuck was going on? 

 


	2. Holy Ghost

People came out of the church, and started dragging off the bodies. They left red smears on the asphalt. 

“Cas, did you just see what happened?”

“Of course I did.”

“People killed themselves. Why?”

Cas gave him that pitying look again. “Some sacrifices are always necessary for the greater good.”

Dean stared at him a moment in disbelief. “Are you hearing yourself right now? People just died, Cas. For .. for what? To feed a hungry god? This is madness.”

Now Castiel’s expression turned infuriatingly patronizing. It was a look he expected from Zachariah, not Cas. “I know you don’t understand. But I need you to trust me. You do trust me, don’t you, Dean?”

This felt like a trap. “I usually do.”

“Good. Trust me now.” Cas turned and kept on walking towards the church. Most of the bodies had been dragged away, but the blood remained, thick and oily, as well as the stench of death. What the hell compelled those people to do that? 

Dean tried to catch the eye of the people - any human anywhere around him - but their eyes just glided by him like he was a mirage. To say this was all fucked up was actually downplaying how fucked up it was. There were no words for this kind of epic crap-tastrophe.

What could influence an angel? He was still worried about the people in town, but lots of things could get to them. Influencing an angel was undoubtedly much more limited. In fact, as far as he knew, almost nothing could. Maybe Cas’s powered down status made him more susceptible to ... whatever the hell was happening to him. Dean grabbed Cas’s arm and stopped him, but it was a close thing. He almost went on walking, dragging Dean along. “Cas, you know this is crazy, right? Tell me you know that.”

Cas put his hands on his shoulders, and gave him that indulgent smile once more. “I know how it might seem to you. But once you meet him, I’m sure you’ll understand.”

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”

“It’ll be okay. The fight’s over, Dean.”

Weirdly, he almost believed that, although not in the way Cas probably intended it. He wondered if he’d be the next sacrifice, and how much he’d fight it if he was. After all, if he was dead, then the apocalypse might not happen, right? Or at least he wouldn’t have to fight Sam to the death. But what guarantee did he have Zachariah wouldn’t kick him right back? If it was God, there’d be no reason to. 

Of course. it probably wasn’t. He really hoped not. A god that wanted that much blood needed to be put down. But if Cas was in his way, he’d stand no chance. Suddenly he wondered if there were other angels here, and if so, he’d be extra screwed. Maybe he could get lucky and distract Cas for a second - he’d never get through three or four angels. 

Cas stepped through the fresh blood on the sidewalk like it was nothing, but Dean avoided it as best he could. He kept looking around, for signs of other angels, cult members with hatchets, guys in pig costumes - what the hell was he looking for? Something was itching in the back of his brain, and he didn’t know what. It was like he was starting to figure something out, but unconsciously, and for whatever reason, he couldn’t pull it to the forefront of his mind. Again, not drunk enough, not awake enough.

The interior of the church was small and smelled of beeswax, sandalwood, and something else. He’d smelled it before, but couldn’t name it. It was herbal, bitter. Where had he smelled it before? It looked like an average church, save for the people in blue robes standing off to the side like palace guards, and ... a throne.

It wasn’t a chair; it was too ornate for that. It was on a dais, and was painted gold, with plump red cushions. Fit for a king. Currently empty. Dean was about to make a joke when a male voice boomed “Leave us.”

The people in blue split, leaving him and Cas alone with God. Or whoever,

He emerged from the back of the church and took a seat on the throne. He was a tall white guy with swept back silver hair and a manly square jaw. He looked like the type of actor who might be hawking reverse mortgages or boner pills at two AM. Sort of middle of the road good looking, but still fairly nondescript. He was wearing a white suit like he was fucking Tom Wolfe or some shit, but he wasn’t, because Dean knew what he looked like. How he had no idea, but he picked up that knowledge somewhere. He focused his blue-gray eyes on him and smiled, and something in Dean’s gut recoiled. This was one evil son of a bitch. “So you’re Dean Winchester. I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Who the fuck are you and what did you do to Cas?” Dean demanded, pulling his gun. His gun which was not there anymore. He looked around, and found Cas was holding it. 

“I told you not to do this,” Cas said. He twirled the gun once, and it disappeared from his hands. “You can have it back when you get over this paranoia.”

Dean scowled at him. thought of a million nasty things he could have said, and instead thought them at him as hard as he could. He hoped he was mentally shouting. 

The man on the throne was smiling. His eyes were aglow with genuine mirth. He was enjoying this. “I’m your lord God, Dean. I would think you’d be more grateful.”

“You’re God my ass. What the fuck have you done to everyone?”

“Dean,” Cas said warningly. “Don’t be blasphemous.”

Dean glared at him, still mentally shouting all his favorite cursewords. Cas didn’t seem to care. 

“Come now, Castiel. What kind of decorum could one expect from Hell’s favorite torturer?”

That was like a slap across the face. If Dean didn’t hate him before, he certainly did now. Cas, for his part, scowled slightly. “I’m not sure that’s fair.”

“Oh Cas, Dean knows I’m joking. Much like he’s joking with you, calling you all those names.”

Great. He was a mind reader too? Dean thought a few insults specifically for him. 

“Castiel, why don’t you leave us for a moment?”

Now Cas frowned. He wasn’t so far gone that he didn’t realize that sounded fishy as hell. “I don’t -“

“It’ll be okay. You can wait for him outside. We’ll be just a minute.” The asshat God said it in a kind, chummy manner, like a game show host consoling a loser.

Cas looked unsure, and that gave Dean a little hope that the real Cas was in there, trying to fight his way out. He was just losing at the moment. Cas looked between him and the good Lord Asshat, and Dean thought that he’d be fine at Cas. He didn’t know if he would be, but if this guy could influence Cas in some way, he could hurt him too. There was no reason for them both to get hurt if it could be avoided. 

Cas must have heard him, because he nodded, and patted Dean on the back before he walked out of the church. Dean managed to keep his cursing - now exclusively for Asshat - in his mind. As soon as Cas was gone, Asshat sat forward. “You’re a curious one, aren’t you?”

Dean considered attacking the guy, seeing if Ruby’s knife would work on this asshole, but the way he smiled at him, like a predator in a loose fitting skin suit, Dean knew he wasn’t going to get the drop on him. Not right now. “What did you do to Cas?”

He leered at him, clearly enjoying this. “In my holy presence, people - and angels - fall at my feet. So why aren’t you, Dean? Is it ‘cause you’re a box full of broken rocks?”

Dean ignored that, although he felt that in the pit of his stomach. It was probably true. He was too damaged to feel much anymore. “So what are you? Beyond a con man. Are there shyster gods? ‘Cause I bet you’re one.”

Lord Asshat made a strange gesture with his fingers, and Dean’s legs were kicked out from beneath him, sending him crashing to the floor. Down there, Dean could still smell faint traces of old blood. It was clean now, but people had died bloody here. More sacrifices? Or something else? “While you may not be affected by my aura, I still have the power to kill you at will. Would you like a demonstration?”

Dean sat up with a groan. He landed on his shoulder funny. Goddamn it. Couldn’t he go five minutes without something bothering him? Getting older sucked. “Yeah, do it. I’ve been killed a couple times. What’s once more?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean you. I meant the angel.”

Dean glared at him. “Leave him the fuck alone.”

Lord Asshat sat back in his chair, studying Dean like the fascinating toenail he found in his burger. “I was wondering which of you was the pet and which was the master. It’s a conundrum, isn’t it? I mean, he’s totally fucking ridiculous. I didn’t think angels could actually go insane, but he’s living proof. Well, semi-living. It’s a weird gray area with angels. What on earth did you do to him? Do you destroy everything you touch, Dean? Are you the famed anti-Midas, who turns everything in his vicinity to shit?”

He managed to keep his wince inside, but he didn’t know if he’d erased it from his thoughts. Dean still wasn’t convinced this guy was a god. It was possible, though. It seemed every god he’d ever met had been a big bag of dicks. This guy certainly qualified. “What are you doing here? Don’t you know there’s an apocalypse happening?”

“Actually, that’s exactly why I’m here. I’m not sure I’m down with it, you know?”

Dean climbed to his feet, using the pews to help him, watching Asshat carefully. He was continuing to look at him with a combination of revulsion and amusement that really grated on Dean’s nerves. He probably knew that too, and it probably made him happier. Dick bag. “Yeah, I bet the human race being dead is going to cut into your sacrifices.”

“Quite. I mean, I should be able to keep a herd around for sustenance, shouldn’t I?”

He quickly replayed that in his head. Yep, the fuckhead said that. “Herd? We’re not cattle.”

“Of course you’re not. Cattle has good qualities.” Asshat smiled at him, but it was all teeth, and never hit his eyes. It was more a threat to bite than anything else. “But, despite being a fascinating ruin of a human, you’re the Michael sword. Hmm. God really does have a wicked sense of humor, doesn’t he? Or she or it. I actually lost track. And we can be anything, so that adds layers of complication.” 

“Who are you really?”

Asshat raised his silver eyebrows at that. “What, so you can look me up and try and figure out a way to kill me? I think not. If it’s any consolation, knowing who I am wouldn’t help you. Death is a friend of mine.”

“If it lives, it can be killed,” Dean replied. Okay, Hellhounds were iffy, but surely there was a way to kill them. They just didn’t know it yet.

Asshat’s leering smile returned. “You’ll make one hell of a demon, Dean. But you figured that out in Hell, right?”

Now Dean could feel him. It was like something scuttling around the walls of his brain, searching for dark corners and secret passages. “Get out of my head,” he snarled, wishing there was something he could do. But he never learned how to fight on a non-physical plane, if that could even be done. 

“Oh, but why? It’s hilarious. And also super sad at the same time, you know?” He sank back into his throne with a sigh, crossing his legs. “If you’re dead, will Heaven just find a replacement? Castiel didn’t think so, but Cas has been out of touch with his fellow cloud pests for a while, hasn’t he? Again, the perils of being around you.”

“Kill me and find out.” It would be an answer, if this fucker could kill him and keep him out of Heaven somehow. Zachariah wouldn’t be able to kick him back, and what would they do about the apocalypse then? 

“Oh no, I have to get a bit more creative. I mean, holding you for ransom has a certain appeal, but what would I ask for? It’s not like angels are trustworthy, because, between you and me, they’re toy soldiers. Failure is built right in. Otherwise, angels get cocky, and you have a whole bunch of Lucifer situations going on. Once God worked out the prototypes, the next ones off the line had built in failsafes. Which is why it’s extra funny that Castiel thinks he can do a goddamn thing. He can’t protect you, Dean. He can’t even save himself.”

Dean wasn’t going to say he’d always kind of suspected that, even though Cas had indeed helped him several times. It was more he didn’t want to have to keep relying on his help. Before he went to Hell, he had survived without Cas. He might have to again. Which, in all honesty, sounded fucking terrible. Cas, Sam, and Bobby were pretty much all he had in this world anymore, and he didn’t want to lose any of them. “Well, nothing’s gonna save you,” Dean said. “I’ll give you one chance. Let me and Cas go, and we won’t come back for twelve hours. By then, you could fuck off to whatever corner of the world you want, and we’ll forget this ever happened.”

He goggled at him, wide eyed, and barked a laugh. “Or what, you stupid human?”

“Or I’m going to figure out what you are, and I’m going to kill you.”

Now he erupted into full belly laughs, bending at the waist despite being in a chair, laughing so loud it seemed to shake the windows. Asshat slapped his knee a couple of times, and then seemed to calm down a bit. “Oh my god. I haven’t laughed that hard in centuries. I see why Castiel keeps you as a pet. Hoo.” He pretended to wipe tears from his eyes. “You know, the fact that you believe that makes it extra funny.”

“I’ve killed gods before. You won’t be special.”

That wiped the mirth off his face. “Oh really? I think you’d be mistaken, you jumped up shaved ape. Now be a good little pet, or your angel pays for it.” He made a flicking gesture with his fingers, and it was like Dean was hit by an invisible sedan going at least fifty. He was thrown violently out of the church, through doors that were - thankfully - open, but it didn’t make the landing any softer. He went down the stairs and ended up finally coming to rest on his face on the sidewalk, tasting blood. Motherfucker. 

Very strong hands grabbed him and helped him up. “Are you all right?” Cas asked. 

As soon as Dean was on his feet, his various aches and pains were gone, including the one in his shoulder, so Cas must have healed him. How powerful was he around this guy? If he could break his hold on him, but still have the power ... maybe Cas could kill this son of a bitch on his own. Breaking the hold was the problem, though. “Yeah, fine. Cas, you’re in there, right? You know this guy isn’t your god. He’s just some powerful prick who has some kind of worship aura around him. Come on, that has to sound like something you know.”

Cas just stared at him, still smiling like he’d done too much Ecstasy in a dance club at one AM. Not that Dean would know anything about that. “Isn’t he great?”

Dean shook his head, aware this wasn’t going to work. He was going to have to come up with something else to break Asshat’s hold on Cas. Dean decided to go about it a different way. “Hey, why don’t you go get Sam? You know he wouldn’t want to miss meeting God.”

This plan had to work. As soon as Cas was away from Asshat, he’d realize he’d been played, and maybe he and Sam could come up with some plan to rescue everyone. Or maybe Cas could communicate enough with the angels that they’d just bring their holy wrath down on this place. He’d be fine with either. 

Cas nodded. “He would love him! Well, except for the whole being Lucifer’s perfect vessel thing.”

Dean grimaced, nodding to match Cas. “So go get him. I’ll wait.”

They just stood there, nodding at each other like a couple of idiots, and Cas’s goofy grin faltered. “What’s the problem?” Dean finally asked.

“It seems I can’t leave,” Cas said, then shrugged. “I guess God wants me here.”

Great. Dean had been afraid of something like that, but he’d be hoping he didn’t have that much control of Cas. Apparently he did. Shit.

Dean wondered if he could drive out of here, but doubted it. If Cas couldn’t leave, why could he? So what did he do now?

Dean again wished he was drunk enough to handle this. But first things first. “Do you know this town?” he asked.

Cas shrugged again. It didn’t stop looking weird on him. “A little.”

“Great. Take me to the library. We have some research to do.”

Cas seemed slightly baffled. “Why?”

“Because existence is eighty percent research, fifteen percent beer, and five percent fighting for your life.” He grabbed Cas’s shoulders, turned him around, and gave him a very light push. “Lead on, McGruff.”

“I don’t think that’s the expression.”

“I don’t care.”

Dean honestly didn’t. He wanted to find out what the fuck Asshat was. and kill him, as soon as possible. But Dean knew there was another problem he was going to have to have handle before any of that. 

Would he have to fight Cas? Would Asshat use him as a shield? It seemed like an asshatty thing to do, so probably. How was Dean going to fight Cas and a god at the same time?

After the library, he was definitely finding a bar. It couldn’t help, but there was no fucking way it could make anything worse.


	3. Suffragette City

The library was small and quaint, as was befitting a town this size and general strain of pastoral weirdness. It was open - or at least its doors were unlocked - but it seemed empty.

It had several windows and lots of light, as well as comfy looking chairs and a surprising amount of very neat bookshelves. Dean could imagine sleeping here, and getting perhaps the best sleep he’d had in months. He might have to try that later.

Dean sent Cas to find books relating to gods, while Dean looked through the mythology section. It was there that he encountered someone.

A middle aged Asian woman in mom jeans and a sweatshirt with gamboling kittens on it was suddenly standing at the end of the aisle when he looked up from shelf scanning. It took Dean a moment to realize what was wrong with her - she wasn’t smiling. She didn’t have the same spacey look on her face as everyone else did. “What’re you looking for?”

“Books,” Dean replied.

She rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to be such a smart ass, Winchester.”

That made him study her warily. “You know me?”

She scoffed. “You’re as dumb as they say, huh?”

Dean reflected on what Lord Asshat had said - he affected humans and angels. Who did he leave out? “You’re a demon.”

She tapped the tip of her nose, and her eyes briefly flashed black. “Finally, you got it. I’d give you a prize, but fuck it. Who cares?”

“What are you doing here?”

“You think I want to be here?” she snapped. “This fucker showed up, and everybody started acting like they’d fallen in a K-hole, and I can’t leave.”

“What do you mean you can’t leave?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Do I need to make you some flash cards? Can’t. Leave. Can’t smoke out, so I’m stuck in Jenny, small town librarian, in this nowhere fucking town. I was doing a tour of the coast before it all went to shit, but fuck me. I was in the wrong place at the wrong fucking time. It’s fun to test drive a spinster for a couple days, but I’d kill for a young punk or even an eleven year old at this point. I’m not picky.”

Dean put back the book he’d grabbed off the shelf, wondering if he should knife this asshole and see what happened. But he didn’t want to hurt Jenny, did he? She might still be alive in there. “Do you know who this asshat is?”

“The god?” She shrugged and shook her head. “Could be any old asshole. At a certain point, gods become generic.”

“Not one of yours, then?”

“Hell god? I wish.” She shook her head again, making her sensible bob move a couple centimeters. “No, this fucker’s just annoying.”

“We need to figure out who it is if we’re gonna kill him.”

Her eyes widened. “We, kemosabe? Hey, I want out of here, but I don’t wanna die. Again.”

“Well, here’s the deal. You and I are the only ones in this place who don’t seem to be falling under his sway. Is there anyone else you know of who’s immune?”

She shook her head. “There’s some werewolves working security for him on the town perimeters, but they’re as mind fucked as the regular people.”

Dean filed that knowledge away in case he needed it later. Good to know. “Okay. So we need to work together to get rid of this asshole.”

He hadn’t even finished his sentence before Jenny was shaking her head again. He now noticed her earrings were tiny silver skulls. Cute. “Work with a Winchester? Against some powerful dickhole god? No fucking way.”

“Or I know an angel who can smite you right now.”

She stilled, glaring at him. “Do you think I’m stupid? I know you -“

“Cas, can you come here a minute?” Dean asked, and gave a shit eating grin to Jenny. Maybe it couldn’t leave, but Dean was sure it couldn’t stand up to an angel blast.

Her eyes widened in panic, and she dropped her voice to a harsh whisper. “He’s here?” Dean nodded. “Okay, fine, Jesus. I’ll help. Just call him off.”

“Only if you agree to smoke out of this woman ASAP and leave her unharmed. Or I’m killing you before Cas ever gets the chance. Clear?”

She scowled, like she hated the terms, but she knew he was serious. “Crystal.” Suddenly she stepped back, as if preparing to bolt, and he knew Cas was here.

“What is it, Dean?” Cas asked. 

“I just wanted you to meet Jenny. She’s going to be helping us.”

Cas’s goofy grin reappeared. “Nice to meet you.”

“Uh, same.”

“Are you evil?”

Jenny looked momentarily panicked by that question. “No, I’m just depressed.”

Cas nodded. “There have been wonderful advances in pharmaceutical technology that may help you.”

Dean almost laughed. This whole situation was so fucking nuts, he was afraid if he started laughing he would be unable to stop, and at some point, his brain would snap like an over-wound rubber band. “Fantastic. How goes the book search?”

“There’s many that fit your very loose parameters,” Cas reported. “But what are we looking for, exactly?”

Dean knew this question was going to come up. He was counting on Cas being as spacey as he seemed. If he wasn’t, this was going to be trouble sooner rather than later. But he had to roll the dice. “I’m looking up some god info for Sam. He’s working on a case.”

“Oh. Good to know he’s back,” Cas replied. 

Dean rubbed his forehead, and wondered what the hell he was going to do. He hadn’t figured out anything yet, and he didn’t know how long he could fool Cas that he wasn’t working against his god. At least he had an ally now, but that ally was a demon stuck in a librarian’s body, and was probably as trustworthy as your average rat on a sinking ship. The urge to laugh was almost undeniable. The Winchester “luck” was a hell of a thing, wasn’t it? Having experienced it way too many times in his life, Dean was positive no luck was better than bad luck, by a thousand percent. 

With Jenny’s grudging help, they carried about a dozen books back to a table, and Dean sent Cas into the stacks to search for anything on hell gods, which he figured should buy them some time without him hanging around.

 

As soon as he was out of sight, Dean asked, “Can he read your mind?”

Jenny looked vaguely alarmed. “Can who read my mind?”

“Lord Asshat.”

“Oh, is that what we’re calling him? Fits.” She sat down across from him. “I doubt it. I mean, I figure if he knew I was here he’d kill me, since I’ve seen no signs he’s down with Hell.”

Dean nodded. He’d come to that conclusion himself. Jenny - the demon in Jenny - was a wild card, and there’s no way a freak like Asshat would put up with that. Unless he saw him as a useful bargaining chip, like Dean. It was an advantage, but Dean wasn’t sure how to use it just yet. Hopefully something would come to him. 

He opened one of the books, and Jenny took one off the pile and let it fall in front of her with a thud. She was frowning. “What exactly are we looking for? I mean, charming gods ... there’s Lucifer - and is he technically a god? - and that’s about it. It’s not exactly a field overflowing with choice.”

That was a good point. Dean considered it a moment. “What about gods with cults or something like that? Super devoted followers.”

“That’s most gods. You don’t get a lot of people indifferent about their god of choice.”

It was a good point, but he still didn’t like it coming from a demon. “Do you have any better ideas?”

Jenny scowled and looked down at the dusty tome in front of her. “No.”

“Okay. So that’s what we’ll look for until we have a better idea.”

That’s exactly what they did for maybe a minute before Jenny looked up, staring at the stacks like she expected an invading army coming from that direction. “You know we’re gonna hafta do something about your angel before we can move on this guy, right?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t worry about it? Dude, you know how devastating angels are, right? They’re God’s shock troops. I know you like the guy, but come on.” Jenny leaned across the table, and lowered her voice to a whisper. “I’ve heard there’s a way to maybe poison them. You -“

Dean glared at her. “Touch Cas, and you die.”

Jenny quirked an eyebrow at him. “Look, maybe he’s your boyfriend - as hard as that is to believe, those fuckers are as sexless as a Ken doll - but you’re gonna hafta choose -“

Dean opened his jacket, and showed Jenny Ruby’s knife. He didn’t say anything, he simply stared at her.

Jenny got it. She sat up straight, and her expression went from diabolical to suddenly smooth. “Cool, you’re the boss. Whatever you say, chief. You handle the angel.”

As soon as Jenny went back to perusing her book, Dean let his coat fall shut, and scrubbed his hands through his hair. He’d been in a lot of seemingly hopeless situations before, and come out the other side. He had to remember that. 

But the odds of any of them surviving this? So low, if he actually figured them out, he’d start laughing until his brain broke one more time.

Dean dug out his flask, and drank it dry. 

 


	4. Nil

Dean was waiting for Cas to get back from an errand he sent him on - picking up lunch, like he was his personal assistant - when he found what may have been the god they were dealing with. He showed the demon, who was unimpressed. “Bacchus? Wine god? Oh, come on.”

“Yeah, I know, but along with wine he’s also the god of ritual madness and religious ecstasy, and he’s known for his devoted cult, who apparently went coo-coo banana-pants pretty quickly. The only reason we have any idea who he is anymore is because his followers were completely insane. ” Dean said, shifting over another book. Or maybe a kinder way to say that was high on their own supply. He also wondered if that was part of the reason Bacchus held no sway over him - Dean thought religion was horseshit. A bunch of rules cobbled together by old time people for some reason, usually preached by people who just wanted money and power. He was not as forgiving of it as Sam was. He’d seen it used too often as a weapon against people who were already hurting. “Also, he dropped clues, and I didn’t realize it. His iconography - well, Dionysus, but that’s him too - is a bull, and he referred to people as a herd, and suggested cattle have better qualities, which ... honestly, he has a point about some people.”

The demon snorted. “Tell me about it.”

Dean kept scanning, and knew all good news was wiped out by this one fact. “Shit. He also said death was a friend of his, and he’s a god known for regeneration.”

Jenny reached over and snatched the book from his hand. “What do you mean regeneration?”

“It means, according to myth, he’s been physically dismembered several times, and always come back from it. He’s also known as the Twice Born God, whatever the hell that means.”

Jenny stared at him. “Are you saying he’s the god equivalent of Deadpool?”

“Or Wolverine, yeah. Take your pick.”

“Motherfucker,” she said, collapsing forward and banging her head on the table in frustration.

“Don’t hurt the vessel.”

“I’m not hurting the vessel!” she snapped, sitting back up again. Physically, she looked okay. Her hair was mussed. “What’s the fucking point, Winchester? We can’t hurt him.”

“What kind of comic book geek are you? Of course we can hurt him, we just can’t do it for very long.”

“And how is that an advantage for us?”

Dean considered that. “We have to time it right, and then hit him with everything we have, all at once.” He picked up a book he’d set aside, and scanned the paragraph for the relevant facts. Well, it was mythology, so it was always a crap shoot what was real and what was hearsay. But he had nothing else, so again, he was just going to roll the dice. “It says here he was supposedly torn to pieces once, and only his heart remained, and that was enough to bring him back. So I’m thinking maybe if we destroy the heart, it’ll finally kill him. Or at least kill him for now.” Jenny gave him a deeply skeptical look. He had a feeling mild mannered librarian Jenny probably had a mean streak in her, because the expression looked so natural on her face. “Yeah, I know, but we don’t have any other ideas.”

“And where’s a heart on a god, you think? There’s no reason they hafta be where they are in humans.”

Which was a fair point. “So we destroy the entire torso. Split it open. I’ll find the heart and crush it myself.”

Jenny sat back, pushing herself away from the table. “Holy shit, Winchester. That’s dark.”

“You don’t start a fight to lose it.”

She still seemed stunned. “I am one hundred percent terrified of you. Also, to be honest, a little turned on right now.”

Dean scowled at him, and wondered why he kept hearing that in his life. He immediately slammed his book shut, as Cas had returned. And he brought burgers, which was the best thing of all. 

There was probably a no eating policy, but Jenny was the head - and only? - librarian, so she made the rules, and there was no one else in here to complain. The cultists apparently weren’t big readers, which made sense. Hard to read when you were in a god induced manic fugue state. 

Dean took this time to lightly quiz Cas and Jenny about the town, trying to figure out if there was a logging company or a rock quarry within the town limits. Jenny mouthed _“What are you looking for?”_ but Dean could only give her a minuscule shake of the head, because there was no way to say dynamite in a way organic to the conversation. A builder would probably have some too. Were their any construction sites in this place? He knew the hardware store was probably his best bet, but still, really iffy. It wasn’t like they had boxes of dynamite hanging around. And he could hardly go in and say, _“I’d like enough to blow your god to smithereens, please.”_

But, if there wasn’t any dynamite, he could improvise. Most people would probably be shocked to know how easy it was to construct explosives. And Dean would love to see if Bacchus could pull himself back together after being blown up into bite sized pieces. And what if he then put those pieces through a wood chipper? Ooh, he had some ideas. 

If Cas was suspicious, he kept it to himself. Even when he was being mind controlled, he still figured out a way to be polite, which was something. Dean still didn’t know what he was going to do about him, but figured he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. One impossibility at a time. 

He was surprised to see the daylight was fading. Had he really spent most of his day in a library? Horrors. But a flicker caught his eye, and he stared out the window, trying to see what it was. “Is something on fire?”

Cas joined him. “It’s a bonfire.”

“For what reason?” Dean wondered.

“Is it witch burning season?” Jenny said. “I always get that and Easter mixed up.”

Dean glanced back at her, not sure if it was a joke or not, but his attention was pulled away when Cas said, “I think it’s the beginning of the night ceremony.”

Dean looked back at him sharply. “Night ceremony? How many people will die this time?”

“I don’t know. But to be a sacrifice is a sacred -“

“Stow it. We need to stop it, Cas. Tell me you’re with me.” Cas looked at him with a small frown, and Dean knew he was torn. So he pushed it. “I need you to back my play, buddy.”

Cas sighed, his shoulders sagging. “Fine. Maybe I can make God understand why you’re so confused.”

“All I’m asking for.” 

As they headed for the door, Jenny remained at the table. He looked back at her. “Maybe we should wait to reveal my presence to Ba ... God, huh?”

Dean frowned, as he wasn’t sure he’d ever met a cowardly demon before. But, to be fair to her, she had a point. Bacchus might kill her as soon as look at her once he realized he couldn’t influence her. Better to keep her for end game. 

Cas was eyeing her curiously. “Why would we keep you away from God?”

Jenny looked panicked again. Yes, this was one odd demon. Was it new at this or something? A baby demon? That too would be in line with his luck. 

“She’s an old friend of his,” Dean lied. “He’ll be pleased to see her, but it’s supposed to be a surprise.”

“Yeah, that,” Jenny agreed. “We go way back, him and me. And it’s his birthday soon.”

Cas looked at Dean with a blooming smile. “Oh, I get it! I won’t tell him a thing about it.”

Dean pasted on a smile. “Great.”

As soon as he and Cas left, he heard Jenny lock the door behind them. Was she more afraid of Bacchus or Castiel, or was it a draw? Hard to say. But Dean couldn’t blame her fear. They were both over-matched, and if he had any sense, he’d be petrified. 

Still, Dean had learned that sometimes you could bluster your way through it. Fake it until you made it. He’d had to learn that in his early hunting days, when he was way too fucking young to be out there chasing monsters, and Dad must have known that. Yes, Dean pushed, but his Dad should have been sensible enough to tell him no. It was weird, but with benefit of hindsight ... his Dad had really fucked him up, hadn’t he? Maybe he thought he was doing it so Dean could save Sammy someday, but he couldn’t save Sam. All this pain, all this fear, and for nothing.  _ Nothing. _ Lucifer would probably beat them all. He couldn’t save Sam any more than he could save himself. But Dean made himself stop thinking about it, because it was pointless, and all this rage had a tendency to gather in his chest and make breathing difficult until he had enough alcohol to calm it down. Cas patted him on the back, and Dean was afraid it was related to his thoughts, but he didn’t ask. 

The bonfire was in the center of main street, in a pile of wood and logs as large as a hunter’s funeral pyre. There didn’t appear to be anyone in it, but Dean did wonder if that was for later. There were lots of people around, some in normal clothes and some in blue robes, drinking wine the color of blood and dancing in the street from the sounds of competing stereos. He had read that Bacchus/Dionysus threw a hell of a party, and orgies were usually involved, which sounded like fun. Except ... under this ecstasy aura or whatever, could anyone actually consent to anything? It instantly struck Dean as super rapey, and he wanted no part of that. He wanted to stop it, but right now he wasn’t sure how. Maybe now was the time to check the hardware store. 

Dean turned, and stopped short as Bacchus suddenly appeared in front of him, slurping wine from a golden goblet. “You’re just in time for the party. I should have guessed. I know a man with a good appetite.”

“I draw the line at rape. Shouldn’t you, after all this time?”

Bacchus gestured at the drinking and dancing people. “I see no violence. Do you?”

“Let them go.”

He smiled at him, that big, creepy leering grin. “Make me, boy.” He then laughed, as Dean glowered at him. He tried not to think of how he was going to kill him. Instead, he made himself try and remember the Weapon-X graphic novel he’d read. He really liked that. Old school Wolverine at its finest. Dad’s friend Jose had given it to him. Wow, he hadn’t thought of him in years. Not since his funeral.

It must have worked, because Bacchus’s silver eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “Why are you thinking of cartoons?”

“Comics,” Dean corrected him. 

“How does that make it better?”

“Sire,” Cas began, with a courteous bow. “Perhaps for tonight, we could postpone the revelry? This is Dean’s first night, and -“

“Go get a drink, Castiel, enjoy yourself for once,” Bacchus ordered offhandedly. 

Cas obeyed, turning and heading towards a table stocked with wine bottles of a kind Dean had never seen before. They looked more like champagne magnums, with some kind of geometric design etched into the glass. He honestly couldn’t tell what.

“Leave him alone,” Dean snarled. He knew he was asking for trouble. But he didn’t know what else to do. Being powerless wasn’t a new sensation, but every time it happened, Dean felt like he was dying. 

A new glass of wine appeared in Bacchus’s other hand, and he held it out towards Dean. “You could use a drink, my friend. And I do know you like your drink. Or would you rather I give you a glass of that rotgut that used to fill the empty flask in your pocket?”

Dean considered his options, saw nothing good, and snatched the wine glass from the god’s hand with excess force. If Bacchus noticed, it didn’t show. “I’m not your friend.” He sniffed the wine, and the smell was amazing. It was ripe fruits on the vine, underneath a gauzy morning sun, in fields that stretched from one horizon to the other. He’d never smelled anything so good. He studied the wine, which looked like crushed rubies up close, and saw the pattern etched on the glass. It was a sort of cubist bull, which made sense. Bacchus marking his wine.

Dean meant to take a sip, but as soon as it hit his lips, he discovered it tasted a thousand times better than it smelled. Drinking it was almost orgasmic; it was summer fruits and honey and a clean alcohol bite like the blood of the universe. It was ambrosia, in the food of the gods sense. Dean had greedily gulped down the contents of his glass before he realized what he was doing. “Holy shit,” he said, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, and sadly studying his empty glass. 

“I know, right?” Bacchus said. “No one makes wine like the gods. I have no idea how you humans drink that fermented piss you call wine. It’s disgusting.”

“After drinking this, I agree with you.”

Bacchus touched Dean’s glass, and somehow it filled with more wine. Must have been one of those god tricks. “So have as much as you want. We’re never running out.”

Dean was sorely tempted. He could feel the warmth of the wine in his gut, and he longed for more with an almost physical ache. The gorgeous taste of it lingered on the back of his tongue, and he could imagine peeling his own skin off with his fingernails if he didn’t get more of it now ... now ... NOW!

He dropped the glass and it shattered on the asphalt, making someone laugh. Bacchus was leering at him again. “Aww. We know your willpower’s never been good, Dean. How did you do that?”

He took a step back, and stumbled. Dean thought he stepped on something and turned to look, but his knees buckled, making him slam down hard on the street. He imagined that would hurt, except it didn’t. And it was then he figured out there was a creeping numbness coming up his legs, and he could no longer move them. That numbness was crawling up his belly now, turning his hands and arms cold. “What ..?” he asked, aware his tongue was now feeling too thick and too slow. 

He shouldn’t have had that drink. It was poison.

Bacchus leaned down into his field of vision, and only then did he realize his vision was fading out. His thoughts were slowing, maybe even faster than his reflexes, although he couldn’t seem to move anymore. It felt like he was encased in solid ice. “If you hadn’t drunk it willingly, I would have made you drink it,” Bacchus said. “Do you really think I was going to let you come after me like those stupid monsters you’ve hunted all your life? You’re an animal, Dean, and I’m the god. You dance to my tune. And you either do it when I say you do it, or you feel my wrath. You think you’ve been through Hell already, Dean? You have no idea what your little angel friend did for you. He spared you from so much, and never asked for credit, because those stupid little shits are self-sacrificing to the end. But I’m going to show you what he spared you from in Hell, Dean. You’re going to relive it, every single moment, until you’re choking on your own blood. And only then will I decided if you’re worth the bother of keeping alive in a cage beside my throne, like the lowly, wounded beast you are. How does that sound to you, huh?”

Dean wanted to say something, spit in his face, call him every filthy name he could think of, but he seemed unable to think clearly. He fell face first to the street, and only after hitting pavement did he wonder why he couldn’t get his hands up. 

He could only feel his body as dead meat around him. Dean couldn’t move. He wasn’t even sure he was breathing, but that was impossible, right? He couldn’t be alive and not breathing. He couldn’t be dead and still thinking. But he was. 

The last thing Dean saw were hands reaching up through the street, blackened and cracked from heat, their fingernails as sharp as talons. They latched onto him, digging into his numb, dead flesh, crunching into bone, and wrenching him through the asphalt and into total darkness.

He hoped he was dead. 

He wasn’t that lucky. 

 


	5. Blood In The Water

There was no time. A second was a century, and an eon was one breath. Nothing was everything and everything was nothing, and yet, Dean knew he was here. He also wasn’t here. He was a speck crushed into the dirt, a nerve stretched a thousand miles wide, and a shadow sliding beneath a door. Microscopic, macroscopic, and everything in between.

He couldn’t comprehend it. His mind wasn’t built to handle it. It had shattered, and cracked, and melted, and broke again. And again. And again. It was an endless cycle of near comprehension, and complete breakdown. He existed, but also he did not, and the dichotomy was untenable. 

He had existed here forever, in this nothing space, in this abyss of falling and never landing. Sometimes he could feel something around him, something like a body, but it wasn’t his. It was a prison, and he was trapped within it. He felt it stripped down, layer by layer. Skin, muscles, tendons, veins, bones - each harder to peel away than the last. He wished to die, but he wasn’t alive, so he couldn’t. He was, but he wasn’t, and because he wasn’t, he was. It was a puzzle he couldn’t solve, but his mind couldn’t let go of it, a dog chasing its tail down smaller and smaller holes, until it was meaningless, and the most important thing he could never understand.

It wasn’t agony. That was too mild a word for this. This was a torment on a scale that was impossible to calculate. It was physical, mental, psychic, emotional, metaphysical - it was everything and nothing, just like he was everything and nothing. He was a conundrum, an aching wound, a shooting star, and he would not be solved, not be saved. He would be burned to ashes, rebuilt, and burnt again. It was a cycle of something beyond agony, and he lived here now. He had always lived here. There was no other place but here. 

And yet, the knowledge was present. He had failed them all. He couldn’t save anyone. They were all dead and it was his fault. They needed him and he failed them, just like he’d failed everything; he was failure personified, in all its bloody glory. He was the death of everything, the death of the world, and the debt he owed was a canyon that stretched into eternity. He was a stray thought, a last gasp, a forgotten ghost on the other side of the universe. He was nothing; he had always been nothing. And yet, he had killed them all.

Vomit had solidified in his throat, turned to cement, and he couldn’t breathe, but he was still breathing, struggling to breathe, drowning in a lungful of blood and bile, a millimeter at a time. He was flailing, but there was nothing to move. He was dying, but already dead. He was broken bones, broken teeth, broken skin, broken thoughts, broken soul, broken intention, broken body, broken mind ...

“Dean, you need to listen to me,” a voice said. Familiar and strange, warm and cold and far and near. He knew it, and he didn’t know it.

Skin tore away from his muscles, muscles tore at the root, bones snapped and cracked like a symphony of gunshots, each one tearing through him like paper ...

“No. Follow my voice,” the voice said again. It was starting to have weight and shape, a glimmer of light in the darkness. “It’s real, I’m real. This isn’t. Dean, find me.”

He was so cold, he didn’t know what warmth was anymore. Skin crackled and sloughed off like sheets, breaking into shards sharp enough to cut. They slid beneath his fingernails, cut into bone, severed nerves ...

Something grabbed him. Something impossibly hot, something that sered into him like molten metal, burning through his skin, into bone, into his soul. The pain was a knife blade through his frontal lobe, bisecting gray matter and nerve clusters like wet tissue ...

Dean scrambled backwards, gasping for breath, trying not to hyperventilate, wanting to scream but not sure how to. A scene resolved around him, but it took eons - a second; an eternity - for him to understand it. A silver oval ... no; a pond, a lake. He was on something solid, but all he could think was street, wood, and then pier solidified in his mind. There was also a monster.

Except ... no. Yes. It was a mirage at first, a heat shimmer in the desert, a ray of light reflecting off the water, and then it wasn’t. It was a shape, figure ... person. No. A person shape, but not a person. Dean’s mind was a frantic rat scrabbling at the walls of his skull, but he was starting to remember things. Remember how to breathe, how to make words, how to talk. But he trusted none of it, because things had lied to him before, and everything was true and everything was false and he didn’t know how to tell the difference between anything anymore. Was he here? Did he end, or did he just go on forever?

The monster/light/person shaped thing put a hand on his leg, and said, “You are here, and you are real. Focus on me. Dean, look at me.”

He didn’t want to, he wanted to run, but he did. And for a moment he was blind, the horizon a pure white light that stung like lightning, Even so, it was doing something to him. He could breathe again, and he was no longer choking on blood, and his mind calmed, and almost made sense. 

Castiel. The the person shaped thing was called Castiel. 

Dean felt himself hyperventilating and made himself stop, made himself take and hold breaths until he could find a steady rhythm again. He wiped his face, expecting blood, but finding only tears. “What ..?” he finally croaked. His voice was coarse, rusty, like he’d been screaming for a thousand years.

Now Castiel’s face, which had been placid, crumpled into a hard, malevolent look. “Bacchus,” he spat, like a curse. “He ripped it all open.”

Dean weighed his words, rolled them around until they made even the slightest bit of sense. “Who did what?”

Cas grimaced, and briefly looked away. “When I pulled you out of Hell, I also ... locked away some of your memories.”

“What?” Oh yeah - that was Hell, wasn’t it? He was in Hell. “Why?”

“Because you couldn’t function. I’d have put your soul back in your body, and you would have been so catatonic you’d have died in your coffin. They wanted you to keep some of your memories for ... reasons I didn’t quite understand, but I knew once I found you you couldn’t keep them all.”

Dean felt like his brain was slowly warming up, but he followed the string, and tried to make sense of this conversation. “They? Who’s they?”

“Heaven.”

Now he was remembering. Cas was an angel. Right. And he was ... damned? Sure, but not only that. He got a glimpse of a man with a leering face, and realized that was Bacchus. Okay, it was coming back now. “What did he do to me?”

“He found the memories I buried and dug them up, for no reason except to torture you and keep you too traumatized to oppose him.”

“Dick move.” It was funny, because his stomach was a knotted fist, and he couldn’t quite repress the shudders. It felt like his body was still suffering the after-effects of the memories. It was probably a lucky thing he wasn’t dry heaving all over the place. He was still regulating his own breathing, as hyperventilation still felt right around the corner. His body was still ready to fly into full panic mode. For some reason, he remembered his Dad telling him, when he was first teaching him how to fight, to ignore the adrenaline rush and focus on the target. No emotions getting in the way; just head down, focus on goal and plan. Weirdly relevant now. “Wait. Aren’t you mind controlled?”

Cas cast his eyes down in embarrassment, but a muscle in his jaw went taut. It was a somewhat subtle expression of his own rage. “I was.”

“How did you break it?”

“I heard you screaming.” He tapped his forehead, and it took Dean a moment to realize he heard him inside his mind. Their weird connection again. “I couldn’t overlook your pain.”

“Does Bacchus know?”

“Not yet. He’s turned his attention towards the others. My guess is he figures you’re comatose, and I’m as good as, at least for now.”

Well, that was something. Not much, but Dean figured they needed to take the little they could get. “We can’t win this fight, can we?”

“It’s going to be difficult. Impossible, if I can’t fight with you.”

Yeah, that had already occurred to Dean, before Bacchus ripped his mind apart. “So how do we make that happen? Have you permanently broken his mind control?”

Cas shook his head. “I’d love to say yes, but I doubt it. I think as soon as he realizes I’m not under control, he’ll reassert it again.”

“Can you fake it until you can get close enough to shank him?”

Cas stared at him. “Acting isn’t my strong suit, Dean.”

For some reason, that finally made Dean laugh, and it felt like a relief. His stomach hadn’t completely unknotted yet, but it was starting to. He dissolved into giggles until he calmed down. It felt like he hadn’t laughed for a thousand years. He also now realized this wasn’t an actual place, but some sort of thing Cas had conjured in his mind. Something relaxing, something made to keep the hurt mammal from freaking the fuck out. “Okay. But you’ve broken his hold. If you can do it once, you can do it again.”

“Under the correct circumstances, yes, but ...” Cas must have picked up his thoughts, because his eyes widened, and he said sternly, “Dean, no.”

“If you come back at the right moment, you can win the game for us.”

“At what cost?”

“Just promise you’ll heal me when you’re back. I can take anything in the meantime.” Actually, this whole thing proved he really couldn’t. But it didn’t matter, because they had to kill this fucking bastard and free this town. He’d deal with it. Dean always found a way to deal with things, even if it was at the bottom of a whiskey bottle. 

“No you can’t. Bacchus is a vile creature. He feeds off the energy he projects. He’s an infinite appetite.”

“Wait, roll that back. He feeds off the energy he projects? How does that work?”

Cas shook his head. “I don’t know. He’s an old god. They’re always more dangerous than they should be.”

“You angels don’t have a way of dealing with them?”

“Yes, we do, but we usually confront them in a group. I don’t have that luxury now.”

“No way to punch through to angel radio?”

“He has some kind of divine distortion field in place. Nothing’s getting through that he doesn’t want to get through.”

“Okay. Maybe that explains why Jenny can’t leave.”

Cas gave him a curious glance, as if he thought maybe Dean wasn’t completely in his right mind again. “Jenny?”

“A demon I met in town. She’s the librarian.”

Now Cas sat forward. He was sitting on the end of the pier, keeping a respectful distance away from the crazy human, but he must have assumed Dean wasn’t going to freak out on him anymore. “She’s not being hostile, is she?”

“No. She wants out of here as much as I do.”

Cas got a thoughtful look on his face. “Hmm.”

“What?”

“Hell hates Bacchus.”

Of everything he expected to hear today, this was nowhere on the list. “Wait, what? Why?”

“His undying nature. He can travel among the world and Hell at will, and Hell doesn’t like being used as someone else’s conduit. He can also take people out and throw them into Hell at will, which takes their regulation power away from them. Death is indifferent, but most Reapers despise him.”

Dean chewed this over. Son of a bitch. They didn’t need to contact Heaven - they needed to contact Hell. “Would a summoning ritual work here, in spite of the divine force field?”

Cas sat up, his eyes no longer betraying his sorrow over this hopeless situation. “Normally, no. But if you used black magic ...”

“It gets through?”

“It’s not something he can police. But black magic is dangerous. You know that.”

“It’s not dangerous for a demon.”

Cas opened his mouth to respond, but paused first, cocking his head in thought. After a long moment, he said, “You’re right. It’s not.”

“Can you tell me anything else about Bacchus that might be helpful?”

Cas idly scratched his face as he considered it. It was an oddly human gesture, and Dean wondered if Bacchus’s ecstasy field was reasserting itself in the real world. “This is town surrounded by forests, yes? He may be feeding off that. He has an ability to leech life force from them.”

“Seriously?” Bacchus seemed to have a bunch of random abilities that, when slapped together, made him unreasonably terrifying. “What happens in a forest fire?”

“I don’t know. Also, his sacred plant is poison ivy.”

Dean chuckled, until he realized Cas was serious. “Shit. That is really on the nose for that poisonous ball-bag.”

“Yes. But the divine often has little use for subtlety.”

Dean thought Cas was almost being deliberately funny there. Good for him. He knew humor was one of those hard to explain things, but Cas seemed to be inching ever closer to it all the time. 

Although he felt some echoes from those insane memories, whatever they were, he could no longer remember them. Cas must have locked them down again. Normally, he didn’t like people rooting around in his mind, but Cas got a pass. He wasn’t trying to hurt him. If anything, this felt like more fuel to his theory that it wasn’t so much Cas just randomly saving him from Hell, but Cas  _ had _ to be the one to save him. 

Ever since Cas seemingly came back from the dead to save him and Sam from Zachariah, it felt like Cas was supposed to be with them. Because no matter how hard he tried to be a typical asshole angel, there was a core of humanity in him. He gave a damn. Most angels didn’t. Most angels would have resurrected Dean but left him with more of a mental minefield to trip over, or used the knowledge of those buried memories to torment him further. But it probably never occurred to Cas to be that cruel. Dean was finding it harder to believe this was somehow coincidence. “What was I remembering exactly? From Hell? What I can remember of it didn’t make sense, but it was terrifying.”

“It was existential torture.”

There was no way he was joking, but it almost felt like a joke. “That’s a thing?”

“There’s more torture than mental, physical, and emotional,” Cas replied. “Existential and psychic is often worse than all the others put together. Physical, emotional, mental, you can try to put in a context. There’s no context for that.”

He probably had a point. Dean never wanted to look at torture - his own, or what he did to others - too closely. It made him feel sick and lost.That’s why he tried to lock it away in a corner of his mind, to never be seen again.

Dean felt he was great at compartmentalizing. He’d done it all his life, and wasn’t going to stop now. Although he still felt physically and emotionally shaky, residue of whatever Bacchus had been doing to him, he stood up, and felt a little better. He had a plan now. Not a great plan - in fact, a very stupid and surely doomed plan - but it was better to have some cards to play, even if they were a pair of twos, and a joker from another deck. “Do you think you can heal me, back in the real world?”

Cas stood up as well, and nodded. “I should have enough time for that, but probably not much beyond it. Dean, whatever you’re going to do, do it fast. Bacchus will look for you, and he may send me to get you.” The idea of that made him look a little queasy. Dean appreciated it.

“It won’t be you, Cas. I already know that.”

Cas didn’t look very happy with the idea, and grabbed Dean’s hand. He seemed to conjure a pen out of thin air, and quickly sketched two symbols on the back of Dean’s hand. “This mark may blind you from me. I will find you, but it could delay it a little.” It looked a bit like the angel repelling symbol, only without a circle, and a couple of marks he could only think of as lesser than symbols.”And this is what we used occasionally to blind the sight of gods. It’s efficacy on Bacchus is unknown, but it’s - to borrow your terminology - worth a shot.” This symbol looked like an inverted pentagram cut in half, with a squiggly bit, and something that looked like a pyramid with a hole in it. One of these days, he was going to get Cas to tell him all about the angel’s secret library of symbols. They had them, and he wanted to hear the stories of why they had them. What gods were they hiding from? Why did they make up a symbol to hide from other angels? Although, knowing angels, the actual explanations were probably technical and really boring. They were holy tax accountants, except when they were officious asshats of doom. 

Once he was done, Cas let go of his hand, and gave him a grimly determined look. “Good luck. And Dean? Make that bastard pay.”

Dean clasped his arm, and said, “We’re going to make him pay.” If he believed it strongly enough, maybe it could be true. 

Reality seemed to bend. One second, he was standing with Cas on that imaginary pier, and then he was suddenly looking at asphalt up close. He could feel his body again, and he felt pretty good, actually. Better than before he was poisoned by god wine. He pushed himself back on his haunches to find Cas crouched down beside him. For a single second, Dean saw Cas, and then he saw Cas’s eyes clouding over with a glaze like ice. He was there, and as fast as that, he was gone.

Dean instantly loathed Bacchus with a million times more power than before, and honestly, he didn’t know his anger meter went up that high. He had no sense of how much time had passed, but the bonfire was now raging in the center of the street, flames licking up to the dark sky, throwing jittery shadows everywhere. He couldn’t see Bacchus, at least for the moment. 

He gave Cas’s shoulder a squeeze, and a whispered “Hang in there. I’m coming back for you,” before he ran off into the dark. 

Dean had no idea how much time he had left. But he was going to make every second of it fucking count. 

 


	6. Go Your Own Way

As soon as he felt like he was a sufficient distance away, Dean ducked into an alley, pulled out his knife, and cut one of his fingers, so he could draw the god blinding mark on the back of his hand. He needed to do the angel sigil too, but he figured this was the most vital one.

After that brief respite, he didn’t stop running until he hit the library. Literally. Jenny didn’t open the door until she looked out and confirmed it was him. She had no lights on inside either, as if this was an abandoned building. That was okay, though, because it fit in with the rest of the block. “Where’s the angel?” Jenny wondered. She looked out before closing the door and locking it again. 

“At the bonfire.” Dean said, quickly drawing the angel blinding mark on his arm. He knew it kind of didn’t matter, because Cas would find him through their connection, but he felt he owed it to Cas to try. “What do you know about black magic?”

She clicked her tongue. “Well, isn’t that just typical?”

Dean, using his otherwise useless phone as a flashlight, glanced towards her shadow. “What?”

“Oh, I’m a demon, so of course I know black magic,” she said, throwing her hands in the air in exasperation. “We’re all witches and wizards and some such crap. I don’t know why I thought better of you, hunter.”

Dean felt really lost for a second, like maybe he’d said something he hadn’t intended. But then he recalled Ruby. “Wait a second - you were a witch before you were a demon?”

“No! I can’t believe ...” She tapered off, and then said, a little more quietly. “Snobs. They were all snobs. Like I was fucking Rudolph and they didn’t want me in their reindeer games.”

“Is that a yes?”

“I was a healer!” she snapped. “Kinda. So you throw off a curse or two - that makes you pariah? Those assholes all did it too. It’s not important. Why are you bringing this up?”

“Hell hates Bacchus. We need to contact them and offer them an all you can eat buffet.”

Jenny turned to the door, to him, and back again. “You ... when ... how did we get here? I thought you were just stopping the night ceremony.”

“Tried, failed. But Cas remembered a few things, and we don’t have a lot of time.” Dean checked his pockets. Low on  fuel. If he could get to the Impala, he had lots. Should he be worried Bacchus would have it staked out? Cas would know if he didn’t, so yeah, he should write it off until the very last minute. Damn it. He had everything he needed in the trunk. “Is there a store near here?”

“Up the block but it’s closed. It’s been closed since he showed up.” Dean cleared all the books off a table by tipping it up a little before setting it down again. “Hey! What the hell are you doing now, you freaked out maniac?”

Dean refreshed the cut on his finger, and started drawing up the summoning symbol in blood on the table top. “Know any demons we can summon?”

“Hold it! Hold the phone!” She came over and grabbed his wrist. “Why are we making a demon booty call? Aren’t you a hunter? Don’t you kill us?”

“Yeah, usually, but this is a special case.” She still hadn’t let go of his wrist, and he considered yanking it away, but she was a demon, and beyond that, she had kind of a point. He hadn’t really explained anything. But time was wasting. “Look, Bacchus is hunting me. I don’t have a lot of time.”

“Is that why you’re drawing blood sigils on yourself?”

“Yes. What I need are a few demons willing to give Bacchus a hard time, and maybe start a forest fire.”

Her eyes widened. “What the hell happened to you while you were gone?”

“A lot, nothing good. But Cas told me he leeches life force from trees, which is weird, but I want to throw that off as much as possible. And if demons possess some of the townspeople, he can’t control them, which means also he can’t feed off of them.”

“So we’re starving him. Ooh! Will that weaken him?”

“That’s what we’re hoping.”

She let go of his wrist, but suddenly looked doubtful. “I thought the angel’s mind was pudding.”

“It was. Is. He broke Bacchus’s control briefly and told me some things.”

She raised her eyebrows so high, they almost touched the top of her hairline. “He broke control, and didn’t zap the fuck out of here?”

“No, he saved me. He bought us some time, now we have to use it.”

Her eyes widened until he thought her eyeballs might fall out, and she took a step back, clapping a hand to her mouth. “Oh my fucking dark lord. I called him your boyfriend as a borderline homophobic insult, which, I’m sorry. Total dick move on my part. But he is, isn’t he? Holy shit! How ... angels don’t feel anything! How the hell did that happen?”

He almost wanted to defend Cas, but angels? No, angels were on their fucking own. Sometimes the only difference between an angel and a demon was their reason for wanting you dead. “Can we focus? Do you know any demons you could summon who might be up to a bit of pointless destruction and pissing off a god?”

She scoffed. “You described every demon I’ve ever met.”

“Ones who will return so I don’t have to kill them afterwards.”

She sobered abruptly, and gave him a dirty look. “Oh, so it’s like that, huh? Use us for what we can do for you, and then it’s wham bam thank you ma’am, kill us like a bunch of rabid dogs on the roadside ...”

“Hey, do you want the apocalypse to happen or not? If I’m not there, it doesn’t happen.”

“Oh really? Last I heard, you weren’t Lucifer’s ball gown.”

Dean frowned. He didn’t want to tell her, but he was going to have to, wasn’t he? “I’m the Michael sword.”

Jenny’s jaw unhinged, and she gaped at him like he’d grown a second head. “Back the fuck up! You’re the Michael sword? And your guardian angel is in love with you? What the hell kind of life are you living, Winchester? How did this ... what is this ...” She ran her hands through her hair, seemingly trying to focus her thoughts. “Where do I buy ringside seats to this shitshow? I’m starting to feel invested, and I want to know how this ends. Can I be your plus one to the apocalypse?”

“Are you helping me or not?”

She rolled her eyes and sighed. “Fine. I suppose I can summon Rachel.”

“Rachel?”

“My ex-girlfriend. She has a couple of asshole relatives that don’t do much but make a mess. I mean, if one or two of ‘em don’t make it back to Hell after this, even she’s not going to miss ‘em. You know what I mean?”

“Got it.” Demons had ex-girlfriends? If he had more time, he would have asked, but he didn’t. The clock was ticking a little too fast for him right now. “You know the summoning ritual?”

She rolled her eyes, and made dismissive hand gesture. “That’s like me asking if you know how to make a phone call. Get the fuck out of here.” Jenny pulled a flick knife out of nowhere, cut her palm, and started completing the summoning sigil on the table. “Don’t hurt -“

” - the vessel! Nag nag nag! I got it! Repetitive much?”

Dean headed for the fire exit, but as soon as he made sure it was disconnected and wouldn’t set off an alarm - Jenny really had thought of everything - he added, “If Cas comes looking for me, give me up. Don’t be a hero.”

She chuckled. “Don’t worry about that, Winchester. I ain’t stupid enough to get between a lovesick angel and his reason for existence.”

He could argue with her, but there was no time. Dean shouldered the door open, and headed out at a run. He barely heard Jenny call after him, “I’m serious about the apocalypse invite. Summon me!”

Although it was eerie because the entire town seemed deserted, the worst part was actually the lack of noise. Yeah, small towns weren’t noisy like cities - cities were like a constant background hum, of cars on streets, of electricity, of people and businesses. Peace could be hard to find, but it also had an infectious energy that made you want to be a part of it. Small towns were good for enjoying the quiet, looking at the stars, and hiding almost unfathomable evil. Also good for day-drinking, since almost nothing was happening in daylight hours, and while the same was true at night, at least the evil usually got up then and stretched its legs. 

But even tiny towns had background noises. Usually barking dogs - sometimes lots of barking dogs - and that one kid who thought skipping a muffler made his piece of shit trunk sound badass. Maybe that was what was wrong - he hadn’t heard a single dog. He hadn’t seen one either, or any kind of domestic pet. Did Bacchus not like those? Did his arrival send the animals - who generally had more sense than people - running for the hills?   


 

Right now, the only thing Dean could hear was the pounding of his feet on the pavement, and his own breathing. Every now and again, there was a sound off in the distance, like somebody’s whooping laugh or shout of joy, audio remnants of the ceremony he couldn’t stop. That was just going to have to eat at him for now, because all he could do was prevent it from ever happening again. 

He found the store, closed and dark as Jenny suggested it would be, but one of its glass doors had been shattered, so Dean could walk right inside. He was immediately assailed by the scent of rotting fruits and vegetables, and the more corpse like scent of rotted meat. How long had this town been under his sway? Jesus. 

It looked like the place had been partially ransacked, but he found basically what he needed. Apparently not a huge need for lighter fluid in this place. 

He grabbed a warm can of beer on his way out. Tasted terrible, but he felt he was owed a final drink before he found out if this had a shot in hell of working or not, and headed for the nearest tree infested spot. 

Dean was about twenty five meters away when he spotted a thick tangle of ground cover, and it only took him a moment to confirm it was poison ivy. “What the shit, dude?” He would never get sacred plants. How the fuck could a god have one, and what the fuck was it supposed to mean? Although, in this case, it happily marked Bacchus as a dick, so maybe it had its place. 

Dean honestly didn’t know if it would hurt Bacchus in any way, but he squirted lighter fluid over a large part of it, and threw in a lit match. It lit up with a small but satisfying  _ “whoomp” _ . He watched the leaves curl and burn until he remembered he was still on the clock, and oh yeah, did he know for certain smoke from burning poison ivy wasn’t toxic in some fashion? So he walked on. 

He was within arm’s reach on the trees when the hairs stood up on the back of his neck. Dean paused, wondering where this bad feeling was coming from, and he thought he caught something blotting out stars in the sky. Looking up, he saw a moving swirl of darkness, and realized some new demons had entered the town. How many had Jenny called? Belatedly, he realized he hadn’t given her a number. Shit. That wasn’t smart. Was she throwing the flood gates open? It was too dark - both this time of night, and the clouds of demons - to say what number he was looking at. He may have just traded one kind of death for another. 

The bad feeling wasn’t dissipating, and Dean looked into the woods to see eyes the color of thunderheads looking back at him. He had an instant fear reaction, a contraction in his gut, before he was hit hard and sent flying. He slammed into a tree trunk with great force, saw stars burst in front of his eyes, and once again was unable to get his hands up before he hit the ground face first. At least the dirt was a little softer than the pavement.

“Did you really think you were getting away that easy, boy?” Bacchus boomed. 

Blood flooded Dean’s mouth from a freshly split lip, and he blindly reached for his pocket while rolling over onto his back and looking up. His chest hurt. Broken rib? Probably at least one. Super. The fight hadn’t even begun yet. “I wasn’t trying to escape.”

“Oh no? I don’t see what you can accomplish. You can’t hurt me.”

“That remains to be seen.”

Suddenly, even though he couldn’t see Bacchus anywhere near him, it felt like someone had Dean’s throat in a crushing grip. He couldn’t breathe, and he could even feel the fine bones of his neck creaking under the pressure. Cool. The full Vader. Another power set Bacchus didn’t need, but still had anyway.

Those stars were now black blotches attempting to steal away all his vision, and by feel Dean popped the cap off his bottle of lighter fluid and flung it blindly into the forest. “How did the angel break it? Tell me that. What did you do to him?”

Dean was starting to black out, his heartbeat a frantic thunder in his ears, but suddenly the choke hold was released, and he started gasping in air like a drowning man. His ribs hurt even more now. He took the few seconds of recovery Bacchus gave him, because he doubted he’d get much of a chance from now on. “I didn’t do anything to him. He’s stronger than you.”

Invisible hands picked him up and flung him again, but not far. He hit a tree trunk back first, and with a shock felt a dull stub of a branch stab into him, just above his kidneys. He let out an involuntary yelp of pain, and immediately tried to pull free, but an invisible pressure was holding him to the tree. Motherfucker! 

“You were an amusing toy for a while,” Bacchus said. “But now you’re starting to piss me off. Maybe I can’t kill you without alerting Heaven, but I can make you wish you were dead a million times over.”

Dean had a quippy reply ready to go, but it was instantly forgotten when he realized the pain in the stabbed spot was growing, and that it wasn’t just pain. Was ... no. It couldn’t be.

Dean could feel the branch growing inside him. 

Wood scraped bone, tore tissue, and there was no describing the feeling or the pain. He was burning on the inside. It ripped through muscle fibers and he screamed, as new tendrils started climbing up his spinal column, stealing away all feelings in his legs. He could feel vines wrapping around his lungs, squeezing out the air he needed so desperately, while other branches started pushing aside his organs, separating his ribs in slow, agonizing increments. In his mind’s eye, he was picturing alien chestbursters, coiling inside of him, rooting around, looking for the perfect spot to come out. 

He had a Hell memory flashback, but it couldn’t compete with this horror. This thing growing in him, crushing him from the inside out. Blood and bile bubbled up his throat and out his mouth, and he couldn’t scream anymore for fear of drowning in his own fluids. 

Bacchus approached him now, his eyes boiling like lava in a caldera, his voice a deep rattle of wind and branches. “You’re in my world now, boy. I can dismember you and keep you alive if I want. I can rip off your fucking head and keep it in a bag. I can replace your bones with saplings and make you my living doll. Tell me how the angel broke the -” 

Bacchus suddenly stumbled, and his brow furrowed in consternation. “What are you doing to my people?” he snapped, bringing a hand to his temple. 

Dean never thought he’d think this, but thank god for demons. He could still move his arms, so he reached into his coat pocket, found a book of matches, and scraped his fingernail along the striker until he felt the flare of a spark. It burned his fingers, but Dean didn’t care as he flung the flaming matches deeper into the forest, roughly where he’d thrown the bottle of lighter fluid.

If he had to burn with the trees, that was okay with him. This ended now. 


	7. Built On Ashes

Dean heard the ignition of the lighter fluid, saw the flare of the light out of the corner of his eye as the fire caught, and allowed himself a moment of hope.

That was exactly how long it lasted.

Bacchus made a hand gesture, and a stiff breeze suddenly flowed through the woods, snuffing it out. Goddamn it! “You think it’s that easy, do you? How stupid are you?”

Did he feel a tendril in his windpipe? Dean would swear he felt something moving up his throat, too solid to be blood. He was barely breathing now, but he was pretty sure it didn’t matter if he was or wasn’t. Bacchus seemed to be right. He would keep him alive, even when he should be dead. Even when he was becoming part fucking tree. 

“Well, I guess the fact that you’re here proves that you are an incredible idiot,” Bacchus continued. “I mean, I’m a woods god, and you come into the woods. It -” Now Bacchus stumbled back, grabbing his head. He straightened up and roared in fury, “What are you doing to my people?!”

Suddenly the feeling of the tree growing through him eased up, and he was able to swallow back the blood and vomit. Bacchus’s eyes were glowing red with fury, and he knew the change had come because the bastard wanted answers. “Sometimes when you’re trapped between the Devil and the deep blue sea, you have to pick a side," Dean said, amazed he had any voice at all. It sounded like he’d been gargling with broken glass. 

Bacchus’s stare was so molten, he would swear he could feel the heat of it. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Dean glared back, aware it probably didn’t have the same effect since he’d been weeping tears of pain and blood for the last couple of minutes. “It means I chose the Devil.”

He got it then. In full fury, Bacchus's face seemed to change. It remained human shaped, but you could see through the skin mask now. He may have been a god, but he was butt ugly. And here was where the myths had lied; supposedly, Bacchus was handsome. “You stupid mortal! You brought the demons here?! You’re a hunter!”

“And I would rather fight a thousand demons than let you keep this town for a minute longer.”

Bacchus held up his hand and clenched his fist, and Dean had no idea what happened. He must have blacked out, because the next thing he knew, he woke up face down in the dirt. He wanted to push himself up to his knees, but it took more time than it should have. It felt like his bones had been replaced by cheap ceramic, something fragile and on the verge of flying apart any moment. Bacchus was letting him feel the damage his little tree trick had done, and letting him know the second Bacchus pulled his power away, he was dead. Dean was a mashed up meat suit, alive only on the whims of a capricious and fucking evil god. 

“You ... you ...” Bacchus fumed. Dean would have told him to use his words, but everything was taking much more energy than it should have, and simply the thought of talking was exhausting. Was this what it was like being a zombie? It sucked. “I’m almost in awe of your idiocy. All you did was damn those people to an early death.”

Suddenly Cas was right there, behind and to the left of Bacchus. He still had that glazed look, but more so. Dean wasn’t even sure he could actually see anything in front of him. “Angel, you have some demons to kill. Save whatever vessels you can, but feel free to burn a few. I have more than enough.”

“Let him go,” Dean said. It felt like it took every bit of strength he had to say that, and he was shagged out. He sagged back against the tree that he only now noticed was mostly red from his blood. So that was the iron smell he was picking up. 

Bacchus quirked an eyebrow at him, and that fucking awful leer split his face again. “Aww. Worried for your little pet, are you?” Bacchus was suddenly beside Cas, stroking his hair. It was creepy as fuck, but Cas, with his glazed eyes and slack face, seemed unaware of it all. “Tell me, angel, how did you break my hold on you?”

There seemed to be a time delay between the question, Cas registering the question was meant for him, and what the answer was supposed to be. God, Bacchus had him so far down the well, Dean honestly didn’t know if Cas could back from it. “I don’t know,” Cas said flatly. “I have no memory of it.”

Dean searched Cas’s face frantically for some sign he was alive in there, because either Cas really had no memory of their meeting in Dean’s mind ... or he was lying. He was under Bacchus’s sway, and  _ lying to him. _ If he could do that ...

Bacchus scowled, and opened his mouth to say something, but his words were interrupted by a huge explosion. It was some distance away, but Dean turned his head in time to see a huge fireball erupting in the woods at the front of the town. In the wake of the fire, he could also hear triumphant cries and laughter - demons having fun, blowing up cars at the forest’s edge. An extremely tall tree was already being consumed by the flames. Dean wondered if Jenny had called up some pyromaniacs, because they sure sounded like they were having a grand old time. 

“Animals,” Bacchus spat. The strain was starting to show on his face, sweat beading on his forehead. 

“If you’re smart, now’s the time to run,” Dean said. It was still far too trying to talk. Another car exploded, a bit farther off, but goddamn, car bombs were loud.

Bacchus sneered down at him. “Insect. You think you’re hurting me? Do you know how many souls I’ve consumed? I can burn this entire town to the ground and have energy to spare.” The ground seemed to erupt around Dean, and arm thick roots grabbed him, circling his legs and his waist, pinning his arms to his chest.

Dean used what strength he had to try and struggle, but it was no use. Roots had twined around him like hungry anacondas, crushing him as they started to pull him into the earth. 

Now his body felt alive enough to panic. Maybe Bacchus put strength in him simply for that purpose. Because he could vividly recall digging himself out of his own grave, tasting dirt, and being terrified he would never hit the surface before he suffocated. His heart kickstarted, feeling like it was pulsing against his broken ribcage, sending lightning shocks of pain radiating outward. 

Roots twined around his throat, constricting his breathing even more, and he couldn’t believe how deeply he’d already been pulled down. The need to breathe became overwhelming as his ability to do so fell away. The dirt was compressing his legs, his stomach, and were now crushing his shattered ribs into his lungs. He couldn’t scream if he wanted to.

Except he was screaming. In his mind, he was screaming for Cas, because he was well and truly fucked here. 

Bacchus leered down at him, clearly enjoying his fear. “I think burying you alive for a few hours will teach you a lesson about disobeying me, don’t you think? We’ll have time to clear out these pests, and then we’ll decide what we’re going to do with you. I’m really leaning towards head in a bag, I must admit.”

The earth swallowed Dean down to his shoulders, and now he could smell that loamy soil smell, one he knew mainly from digging up graves. He hadn’t realized until this exact moment that he really didn’t want to buried alive again. 

Bacchus put a possessive hand on Cas’s shoulder, and Cas spun and buried his angel blade right in the middle of his chest. It happened so fast, Dean didn't know if he or Bacchus was more surprised. Cas  then held up his hand and gave Bacchus a full force blast of angel energy point blank to the face, sending the god flying far into the woods.

The roots released Dean and the dirt collapsed around him as he gasped for breath, the pain still hot and intense in his entire torso. He wanted to do nothing more than curl up in a fetal position and wait for a hopefully quiet death. 

Cas had turned towards him, and he saw the glaze was gone. In fact, his eyes were burning blue with angel energy. Dean shook his head, and croaked, “Get him first.”

He gave him a pained look, but Cas knew it was the right thing to do. so he turned towards Bacchus, and was on him like a shot. He didn’t walk; he simply teleported there in a flash, grabbed a squirming Bacchus by the throat, and rammed his angel blade right into his forehead. Bacchus started screaming, but Dean really didn’t understand why until he realized Cas was ripping the blade downward, bisecting his burned face. Cas swapped his grip from his throat to his hair, and kept going.

He didn’t gut him like a fish more like he split him in half, from the crown of his head to his crotch. Bacchus was somehow still alive, as he was making noise and flailing, but by the time Cas dropped the half-flayed god, his twitches seemed autonomic more than anything. It was devastating and disgusting, and Dean honestly loved Cas in that moment.

“Destroy the heart,” Dean said. Oh wow, maybe he shouldn’t have talked. He was so goddamn tired. His eyelids were closing, and Dean was fighting to keep them open. It was a battle he was losing.

Still, he saw Cas reach down and pull apart Bacchus’s ribcage with a shotgun like  _ crack,  _ and reach into his exposed chest cavity. The heart was large, deformed, and black. Cas held it in one hand, and squeezed. Instantly pulped, it exploded into liquid that peppered the woods with black blood like rain, and Dean sort of got the whole terrified/turned on thing. A pissed off angel was a wonder to behold. 

Bacchus had stopped moving. In fact, as Cas walked back towards him, Dean could see Bacchus’s body was transforming into soil being absorbed by the forest floor. Dean didn’t know if that was what permanent or temporary death looked like for Bacchus. 

He would have asked, but sleep overtook him and dragged him under, and honestly, it felt kind of good. Darkness was warm and inviting, and he was so tired. Also, it was great not to have to fight anymore. He was so tired of fighting. 

Then suddenly, he was back. Awake on the dirt, Cas crouched down beside him, looking concerned. His eyes were back to normal blue. “Is he dead?” Dean asked. It didn’t exhaust him to talk anymore. In fact, he felt normal. Good old angel healing. 

“Permanently? I can’t say,” Cas admitted. “He is dead for now, though.”

“Good enough.” Dean sat up, and then got to his feet. Cas helped him, even though he didn’t need to, because he was used to picking him up off the ground.

With the benefit of hindsight, Dean realized he could put another notch on his “died again” belt. That hadn’t been sleep, had it? Cas must have got him at the last possible second, so maybe it didn’t count. But god - for a moment there, death felt pretty good. Better than being turned into a tree, at least. 

There was another blast in the distance, and more raucous laughter. Cas looked at the horizon and frowned. “I still have the excess power Bacchus gave me,” Cas said. “I think I can take care of this. Shut your eyes and look away.”

“What -” Dean began, but Cas was already gone. Dean then saw him hanging in the sky over the town, and understood what he was about to do a split second before it happened. He turned away and closed his eyes, but white hot energy exploded from Cas like a supernova, and even with his eyes closed, Dean was pretty sure he was blind now. But the light faded as quickly as it arrived, and when he opened his eyes, he could see fine. Also, Cas was standing right beside him again.

“Did you get all the demons?” Dean asked. Weirdly enough, he was sort of hoping Jenny wasn’t among them. Yeah, she was super annoying, but ... he kind of liked her? Gross. But he couldn’t have fought Bacchus without her. 

“All the ones outside,” Cas said. “We may have to go door to door to find out if there’s any stragglers.”

A bummer, but it did give him hope Jenny was still around. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, and looked at it. He was getting a signal now. it was well and truly over.

He put his phone back, and asked Cas, “How’s your forest fire fighting skills?”

Cas’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “My forest fire ...” he trailed off as soon as he understood what he was getting at. “Oh dear.”

Yeah, that about summed it up.

**

With people back in control of themselves, there was a town fire department, so it wasn’t something Dean and Cas actually had to tackle. But what Dean figured out quickly was everyone was missing time, and no one had any idea what actually happened. Everybody thought it was a week earlier than it was. Neither Dean nor Cas had any particular answer to this, because what could they say?  _ “A mad god took over your town, and used you like an all you can eat salad bar. But he’s dead, at least for now, and there’s a slim but very real chance you had sex with everybody in this town, including relatives.’  _ There was no way to sugar coat that.

Some people were very distressed over finding they’d lost a week, and Cas was kind enough to put them to sleep. It was an extremely temporary solution, but it was all they could do for now. Their town search for demons only turned up a couple, and one fled its vessel at the sight of Cas, proving they were pretty damn smart. 

Although Dean didn’t want to admit it, he was glad when they came to the library, and found Jenny cleaning the summoning circle off the table. “Holy shit, you guys are alive!” she said, and much to Dean’s shock, she hugged him. He didn’t know what to do, so he didn’t do anything. That always seemed like a sound strategy. She patted Dean’s shoulders, and smiled. ” Love beat a bastard god. I’ve never been so glad how wrong I am about someone being a total fuck up.”

“What?” Okay, that was uncalled for.

Much to Cas’s surprise, Jenny hugged him too, and he looked genuinely baffled, and seemed to not know what to do with his hands. He looked at Dean, and he knew Cas was thinking about smiting her, and he shook his head. Smiting wasn’t called for yet, although by calling him a fuck up, Dean was considering it. “I really hope you crazy kids make it work,” Jenny said.

Cas’s consternation seemed to be ramping up. “I’m nearly as old as the universe.”

She gave his arm a friendly slap. “That’s the spirit.”

Once she stepped back, Dean said, “We had a deal.”

Jenny sighed and rolled her eyes. “Like I don’t wanna ditch this body? Please. Next time, I think I’ll aim for stripper. Male stripper. Should be more fun than books.” 

Dean made a wrap it up gesture, while Cas looked between them, still trying to figure out what was going on. 

“See you on the flip side, Winchester. I’m gonna be waiting for that apocalypse summoning.” And with that, Jenny smoked out of the librarian in a dark cloud, and Dean caught the human Jenny before she could hit the floor, while the demon escaped out an air vent. 

“Shouldn’t we have killed her?” Cas asked. That confused look was just welded onto his face now. 

“She helped me fight Bacchus, so no. I’m keeping my word. But if we come across her again, all bets are off.” He propped human Jenny up in a chair, and put her head gently down on the table. She was unconscious, but seemed to have a good pulse. While she would have missing time too, at least she didn’t participate in any group orgies. Who knew there was ever a good time to get demon possessed?

“There was a bet?” Cas asked.

“Figure of speech.” 

“What was she saying about the apocalypse?”

“Nothing. I think she thought she was funny.”

Cas considered that. “Was she?”

“No.” 

They walked out of the library, and back out onto the street. The sun had come up, and all the smoke in the air had made the dawn a spectacular orange-rose, although the scent of burned wood, slagged metal, and gasoline left something to be desired. It looked like most of the fires were out, though, so at least there was a small victory there.

The Impala was still where Dean had parked it, and he was relieved, because part of him worried the demons might have chosen it as one of their bombs, and if they had, he would have killed every last fucking one of them. 

Dean sighed as he slid into the driver’s seat. He was finally getting out of here, and he wasn’t a tree. He never knew that last one was even possible, and he so wished he still didn’t. 

Cas got in on the passenger side, and once he closed the door, he said, “I’m sorry.”

Dean found that startling. “For what?”

“Your life wouldn’t have been in danger if I hadn’t called you.”

“What? No, Cas, this isn’t on you. Besides, someone had to save these people from Bacchus. Who better than us?”

 Cas frowned in thought, but eventually nodded. “i should try and get a message out to Heaven that Bacchus may return. Next time, a garrison can go after him.”

“Who needs a garrison when we got you?” Dean put the keys in the ignition, but stopped before he could fire up the engine. He should say it, shouldn’t he? He should. “Uh, Cas. Thank you.”

Now it was Cas’s turn to look surprised. “I wasn’t letting him kill you, Dean.”

“No, not that. For saving me from Hell, for ... everything.”

“It was my -“

“Don’t say it was your job, ‘cause we both know you went beyond it. Now be gracious and accept it, you son of a bitch.”

That teased a small smile out of Cas. “Okay.”

“Good.” Dean started the car, and felt a little better. It had never really occurred to him to thank Cas, but where would he be without him? Actually, he didn’t want to think about that. He was just going to file that away with the tree memory, and try to never recall them again. 

Once he pulled away from the curb, Cas said, “Technically, I’m no one’s son, certainly not-“

“Cas, stop,” Dean demanded. But he couldn’t help but smile.

 

**

 

_ The End _

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am really tempted to write another Jenny story. In case you were wondering.


End file.
